Victorious and its involvement

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jason spurr

Re: Victorious and its involvement

Post by jason spurr »

I am sorry for the delay in replying to your posts. I have been away for the last few weeks and will endeavor to post a reply very soon..
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Re: Victorious and its involvement

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tommy303 wrote:I think, besides the perception on the part of the Baron and a few others, part of the testimony about a delay in the British finding the range came from at least one survivor of Commander Oels' team in command central which directed damage control operations. At any rate, Rodney had problems early on with her gunnery due to a difficulty in obtaining accurate ranges, but it has been so long since I have read about it that I can no longer recall the details. The British opened fire at about 0848, but did not begin to obtain hits until after 0900, so it is possible the Baron's perception was not wrong. I do seem to recall that after a few initial salvos, Rodney ceased fire due to course changes and did not resume fire until about 0918.
Rodney and KGV claimed hits in their first several salvos (salvo 3 for Rodney), but KGV then began ranging on Rodney's salvos and her accuracy declined for a few minutes. KGV then claimed hits again starting at 0853 and 14 straddles of the next 34 salvos.
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Re: Victorious and its involvement

Post by dunmunro »

jason spurr wrote:I am sorry for the delay in replying to your posts. I have been away for the last few weeks and will endeavor to post a reply very soon..
If you are truly interested in proving/disproving Victorious' involvment, you can always request a copy of her log (which will detail her movements and positions during the dates in question) and those of her escorting cruisers, from the UK Archives.
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RF
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Re: Victorious and its involvement

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Exactly.
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wadinga
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Re: Victorious and its involvement

Post by wadinga »

All,

The Most Excellent Herr Nilsson provided a track plan of Victorious' movements, undoubtedly generated from her log, way back in July. If it didn't convince our friend then, why would it now? :stubborn:

For an exposure of the monstrous calumnies some perpetrate from behind the mask of anonymity peruse http://nineteenkeys.blogspot.co.uk/2008 ... ny-of.html where for several years some twit and his rabid chums accused Dorsetshire's captain of a "War Crime" in not staying to pick up all Bismarck's survivors. Even after the Captain's relative refuted the inaccurate claims including that he was demoted afterwards for his actions, in a very calm and reasoned manner, this band of klutzes continue to blather on in the same outraged vein. Until the originator of the thread actually checks up on the facts and previews what he says will be a complete revision of his point of view. Unfortunately the thread terminates at this point, presumably because the perpetrator choked to death on the enormous piece of humble pie he was forced to stuff down his gullet :lol:

Reading on the subject of the "periscope sighting" over the holidays reveals that Wohlfarth in U-556 was transmitting almost continuously from visual distance of Bismarck's fight with Vian's destroyers, to home in other U-boats and at 04:00 reported Bismarck still fighting. At 06:30 he met with Kentrat's U-74 on the surface to pass on Bismarck's estimated location, so the latter could proceed to assist the battleship since his own fuel status was too low. Kentrat dived at 07:30 to avoid an approaching destroyer and cruiser. Interestingly the "wonderful" GHG passive sonar apparently gave him no idea where the explosions he heard whilst underwater were, since this was Bismarck's last fight, and he spent seven hours searching for survivors after he surfaced at 09:22 before he picked up 3 men. All this radio traffic from a nearby U-boat would have been detected aboard the British vessels, even though without HF/DF they could not determine direction or triangulate a position. Enough to warn them U-boats were nearby.

Captain Martin's primary responsibility was to his own crew's safety, not Bismarck's. Even his reaction against Joe Brook's heroic action is understandable, given that the Captain's moral dilemma would be even worse if numbers of his own crew had gone over the side, to pick up German survivors. So an example was made of Brooks to the rest of the crew, so as put them off a similar stunt at some time in the future. Being captain in time of war is not an easy job.


All the best

wadinga
"There seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today!"
jason spurr

Re: Victorious and its involvement

Post by jason spurr »

Well it seems that this topic has interested a lot of people. Mr Rico did say to me that he didn't want to disregard my theory all together. This is completely understandable given all the so called facts surrounding this battle. Some people don't agree with RF's statement that there were only 300 or so survivors in the water after the Bismarck disappeared beneath the waves, myself being one of them. During an interview in 2004 Bruno Rzonca, a survivor from the Bismarck stated when asked, that there were around 1000 men in the water. It seems that everything we read RF is not necessarily the truth! If you were so sure that the Victorious was not present during the final battle you would not be asking the web master of the Victorious association to elaborate on that fact.. As for the last post that seemed to address Captain Martins actions during the rescue, well yes his main aim was to protect his ship and the men, but you carn't help thinking that his action were fueled more by revenge then the fact that there was a major threat in the water. Especially when U-boats were already in the area and had been for some time.. As for this photo from the Dorsetshire, there is no way it was taken at the start of the battle, given its distance from the Bismarck. At a range of a couple of thousand yards there is no doubt the Bismarck would have taken it out with her secondary armament on the star-port side. Very interesting to me is Wadinga's opening sentence in his last post. The track plan of Victorious supplied by Herr Nilsson, it doesn't convince me in the slightest. First of all after a zig zag coarse the Victorious seemed to be steaming to Iceland with the Kenya to refuel. Then at 0535 on the 27Th she detached from Kenya and virtually backtracked by herself to the UK. So much for her being low on fuel!! If you calculate the distance she traveled after her strike on the 24Th, it is greater then if she was to stay with the Bismarck and then return home after the sinking. Even when the Kenya left her on the morning of the 27Th her position from the Clyde is somewhat greater from home then from where the Bismarck was sunk. So to address a previous remark that the Victorious would not have been able to make it back in time to load her 48 Mk 1 Hurricanes on the 29Th, is rubbish! On the Bismarck site it is stated that she loaded Mk 11 Hurricanes, just another blemish I suppose in this Bismarck story... Two of the Victorious crew that I visited a number of years ago said, No No we weren't there, we were heading back to Scapa Flow, but they weren't.. I previously told you what the other crew member said to me when I asked him were you there on the last day, absolutely nothing, he just frowned and got up and left the room. His friend said to me before showing us out that he wasn't allowed to talk about it.. Some of you may laugh at this, but none of you were there to feel the atmosphere change in the room when this question was raised. It seems very unlikely to me that the British would send a Carrier away from such a crucial battle before the main objective was accomplished.

I just want to take this opportunity to wish you all a Happy New Year.

I do hope 2013 will shed new light on this mystery.........
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Rick Rather
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Re: Victorious and its involvement

Post by Rick Rather »

Perhaps you could study the mystery of "paragraphs" first.
Just because it's stupid, futile and doomed to failure, that doesn't mean some officer won't try it.
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Herr Nilsson
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Re: Victorious and its involvement

Post by Herr Nilsson »

jason spurr wrote: Very interesting to me is Wadinga's opening sentence in his last post. The track plan of Victorious supplied by Herr Nilsson, it doesn't convince me in the slightest. First of all after a zig zag coarse the Victorious seemed to be steaming to Iceland with the Kenya to refuel. Then at 0535 on the 27Th she detached from Kenya and virtually backtracked by herself to the UK. So much for her being low on fuel!! If you calculate the distance she traveled after her strike on the 24Th, it is greater then if she was to stay with the Bismarck and then return home after the sinking. Even when the Kenya left her on the morning of the 27Th her position from the Clyde is somewhat greater from home then from where the Bismarck was sunk.
The map is a Mercator projection.
From ADM 234/509: Sinking of the 'Bismarck', 27 May 1941: Official Despatches:
Other dispositions
55. Meanwhile, those forces which could not reach the most probable track of the enemy were moving to cover alternative possible movements. The Manchester and the Birmingham took up the Iceland-Faeroes patrol, and the Arethusa that of the Denmark Strait, with air patrols of all the northern passages to assist. The Rear-Admiral Commanding, Second Cruiser Squadron, in the Galatea, with the Victorious, Kenya, Aurora and Hermione in company, proceeded towards the Iceland-Faeroes passage, carrying out air searches on the way. The cruisers had not enough fuel left to escort the Victorious to the Bay and she could not be allowed to proceed unescorted.

56. Two Swordfish aircraft were lost during the air searches on 25th and 26th May; but the crew of one of them had a remarkable escape. The aircraft landed alongside a ship's lifeboat, unoccupied but complete with provisions and water, and the crew spent nine days in the boat before being picked up by a merchant vessel. One of the Fulmar crews was also rescued by a merchant vessel.

57. The Prince of Wales also proceeded towards Iceland; and destroyers were sent out to screen her and the Victorious. The Suffolk, after her search, was too short of fuel to steam at the high speed necessary to come up with the Bismarck; considerable forces were better placed than she was for intercepting an enemy movement to the south-eastward and the Commanding Officer considered he would be better employed covering the Victorious in the northern area, where there was nothing more powerful than a 6-in. cruiser. He therefore set course to the north-eastward until he was instructed, on 26th May, to proceed to an area in the Davis Strait south-west of Cape Farewell and search for enemy supply ships.
Regards

Marc

"Thank God we blow up and sink more easily." (unknown officer from HMS Norfolk)
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RNfanDan
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Re: Victorious and its involvement

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Let's not cloud the story with logic and facts, please....I just LOVE a good "magic bullet" theory!
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RF
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Re: Victorious and its involvement

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jason spurr wrote: Some people don't agree with RF's statement that there were only 300 or so survivors in the water after the Bismarck disappeared beneath the waves, myself being one of them. During an interview in 2004 Bruno Rzonca, a survivor from the Bismarck stated when asked, that there were around 1000 men in the water. It seems that everything we read RF is not necessarily the truth!


You quote out of context. I said that the figure was more probably around 300 or so rather than the 1,000 now mentioned here. Bruno Rzonca was in the water with the rest of them and would be aware of other survivors immediately around him. But he would not have a clear view of the whole area, not even when he was hauled out of the water. His figure is a guesstimate.

If you were so sure that the Victorious was not present during the final battle you would not be asking the web master of the Victorious association to elaborate on that fact..
No. I asked him to confirm the ships logged position. That was done in the expectation that the position would show the ship to be on its way home.

As for the last post that seemed to address Captain Martins actions during the rescue, well yes his main aim was to protect his ship and the men, but you carn't help thinking that his action were fueled more by revenge then the fact that there was a major threat in the water.
As has already been said there is no evidence of a motive of revenge. Captain Martin acted with equal concern for his ship six months later when the U-boat supply ship Python was scuttled, leaving not just her own crew in the water but also the crew of the hilfskreuzer Atlantis as well. Why? Because two U-boats were present, one of which lined up to attack Dorsetshire.
I do hope 2013 will shed new light on this mystery.........
There is no mystery.
''Give me a Ping and one Ping only'' - Sean Connery.
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wadinga
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Re: Victorious and its involvement

Post by wadinga »

To all,

An answer to the whole "black flag of parley" BS stirred up by Iain Ballantyne in his "Killing the Bismarck" is now discovered.

There are two versions of the interrogation document of the Bismarck crew POWs on the web. The one on this website is an early version, purely reporting German statements without putting it in context. The second, available on the U-Boat Net website is a more developed document including a narrative of the action to put the german statements into context. This is its location http://www.uboatarchive.net/BismarckINT.htm

On Page 21 it states
Prisoners mentioned that "Bismarck" had hoisted a blue flag as a recognition signal for submarines
. So the internationally recognised :?: "black flag of parley" :? was not black at at all but blue, and hoisted to avoid the possibility of trigger-happy u-boats torpedoing the ship they were supposed to be helping. Given that various survivors were confident the Kriegsmarine War Flag was flying as the ship sank, the whole sensationalist "Bismarck was trying to surrender" construct crumbles into nothing, as the misconstrued remembrance of a misinformed old sailor. Hmmm, I wonder what we can learn from this...... :wink:

For our friend, who believes Victorious' log, the map Herr Nilssen provided, and every book written on the subject was falsified to erase the carrier's presence at the final sinking, the document's
As British ships approached many of the swimmers shouted: "Come away! the English will shoot us!" and actually a number of men started swimming away from their would-be rescuers. Blame for this attitude must be attributed to the false propaganda with which these men had been imbued. When it was found that there was no shooting and, on the contrary, every effort was made to pick men up, prisoners admitted that they had been deceived.
information will be dismissed as another falsehood.

But then if you have some photos to (re)value http://www.itv.com/news/2012-05-27/phot ... ing-emerge some conflicting information is not what you want to hear.
The photos have been owned by an unidentified private collector for more than 50 years and he has now chosen to put them up for sale at auction.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z2H8pFhObu
The photos areexpected to raise £300 at at auction. But maybe a bit more with an interesting backstory :cool:

All the best

wadinga
"There seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today!"
jason spurr

Re: Victorious and its involvement

Post by jason spurr »

Well its nice to know that my photos are at least worth something!! I got in touch with the Auction last week and the collection the previous post linked us to sold for 820 pounds. I somewhat think my collection would sell for a little more though considering the photo of the torpedo hit on the 24Th seems to be taken a minute or so before his and is a lot clearer. If I did decide to sell my collection I would also include the two photos of the Tirpitz, even though there seems to be a few of these in circulation they are in fact printed on photographic paper and not postcard backings.

It has been hard for me to swallow the fact the Victorious was not present during the final battle and played no further part in the Bismarck's sinking.. But with all the evidence you gentlemen have provided, I have no choice...

I honestly want to thank all you men for the time you have given me, I do hope there is no hard feelings.

All the best
Jason Spurr
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RF
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Re: Victorious and its involvement

Post by RF »

jason spurr wrote: It has been hard for me to swallow the fact the Victorious was not present during the final battle and played no further part in the Bismarck's sinking.. But with all the evidence you gentlemen have provided, I have no choice...

I honestly want to thank all you men for the time you have given me, I do hope there is no hard feelings.

All the best
Jason Spurr
People do make honest and genuine mistakes and can misremember things over time, particulary if at the time they didn't have a full picture or knowledge of what was going on. There is also the problem of straightforward misinterpretation - yes Victorious was involved in the chase and destruction of Bismarck, it wasn't there at the end to see Bismarck founder.

I hope you can now also accept that there were no ''British war crimes'' as you have previously alleged.
''Give me a Ping and one Ping only'' - Sean Connery.
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Dave Saxton
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Re: Victorious and its involvement

Post by Dave Saxton »

jason spurr wrote:I honestly want to thank all you men for the time you have given me, I do hope there is no hard feelings.

All the best
Jason Spurr
No hard feelings from me and I doubt anybody else. I can honostly say that I harbor no hard feelings to anybody that I have had any disagreements with or who have disagreed with myself over the years on this and other forums. I would also like to commend you for your courage in your posting.
Entering a night sea battle is an awesome business.The enveloping darkness, hiding the enemy's.. seems a living thing, malignant and oppressive.Swishing water at the bow and stern mark an inexorable advance toward an unknown destiny.
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Re: Victorious and its involvement

Post by Vic Dale »

The vessel in this photo, which is the same as that shown via the Daily Mail link is not Bismarck, but a ship of the KGV class and given that it is not in company with an escort, is probably Prince of Wales - if in fact the photo was taken during the Bismarck chase.

As I have said many times, there are no guarantees with photos and this particular shot appeared in an HMSO publication titled Coastal Command which was published some time in 1942. The photo shown in the Mail was a forces postcard and was probably reproduced because of it's popularity in the HMSO publication, which will have circulated around the fleet before being issued for general release. So the photo could have been taken at any time.
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